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June 17, 2005 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:05
June 17, 2005, Friday, Hour #3
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Having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have.
Rush Limbaugh, your guiding light through times of trouble, confusion, murkiness, tumult, chaos, despair, torture, humiliation, and the good times as well.
It's Friday, so let's go.
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Open line Friday.
Basically what it means is you can call and talk about anything, whether I care about it or not.
Can't do that on Thursday.
I have to be interested in it Monday through Thursday, or it doesn't, it doesn't fly.
But remember, regardless, there is no first amendment on this program.
You are not constitutionally guaranteed a right to speak on this program.
I am a benevolent dictator.
Rush Limbaugh, the prestigious Attila the Hun Chair at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies, telephone number 800 28282.
The email address is Rush at EIB net.com.
I want to again remind you our podcasts continue.
And a few problems this week.
Some of our computer geek wizards out there were trying to play some games with the software.
Always trying to write some scripts that will help further automate things.
And they made a mistake earlier this week, and it only downloaded one of the three hours.
And I heard about that.
And uh only downloaded downloaded 10 minutes of uh of one of the hours.
But uh I mean we got customer service on the ball here.
We got it all fixed and it's all working normally now, and the podcast uh delivered automatically to your computer as long as you download our idiot proof Rio Linda proof, Rush 24 Media 7's uh uh 24-7 Media Center software.
It's Mac and Windows compatible, installs easily, and all you have to do is have that software program running.
And about an hour after the program, somewhere in that time frame, maybe 75 minutes after the program, the files begin to download and it'll show up on uh on your computer.
And many of you people also complaining.
I've never run into more complainers in my life.
I mean, there's a lot be honest.
There's a lot of praise.
You get you all would be a very good, I mean, you sugg I mean the outpouring of love and devotion over the podcast is is unlike anything we've offered on the uh on the program before.
But even at that, here come the complaints.
If I were doing this, I would have done this.
The biggest complaint is the file names are too long because they don't show up in the iPod window.
Uh because the date is at the end of the file name, and so they don't know which.
So we're working on that.
We're responding to this stuff.
We're doing everything we can in a customer service area to um uh meet the expectations and surpass them of uh all of you out there as we continue to be the industry leader uh in podcasting.
I also want to direct you to the fact that we have responded to uh massive public demand and added two sizes to our uh club Gitmo t-shirts at the Gitmo gift shop uh at Rush Limbaugh.com.
Four sizes originally offered, small through double X, but we've added uh triple X and quadruple X to the size roster.
There are price increases for those two sizes.
The triple X is 2295, the 4X 2595.
Now I'm hearing people whining and moaning about shipping costs.
We can't do anything right.
No matter what we offer, here comes another complaint.
Okay, now that you've added this, shipping for this, nine bucks.
Are you kidding me?
You uh Others are complaining about American Express.
We don't take a America.
Oh, I'm hearing about that too, Dawn.
Uh uh women's what?
Tights?
Tank shirts, women tank shirts.
Yeah, we we ought to we I'm hearing about that too.
We don't have enough female sizes.
So I've I've you know, women are right, and I said, don't worry.
You know, get get get a small and uh uh it'll shrink up.
Uh or you know, get an XL sleep in it.
I mean, what what the heck?
A woman sleeping in a t-shirt can be sexy, don't you think, Dawn?
So any number of uses for the club Gitmo t-shirt.
But we've added another slogan.
We so we got we had two.
We've had we've added a third one now.
And uh uh okay, we'll look at we'll look at female sizes and maybe what did you call it?
A tank shirt?
A tank top.
A tank top.
Club Gitmo tank top for Yeah, I know what is a tank top is.
She's always tell me with no sleeves.
I'm thinking about it.
I'm just thinking about it.
You know, there are inventory costs here, Don.
People say, would you add this?
Won't you have?
Oh, sure.
Yeah, easy for you to say.
There are inventory costs that have to be uh uh factored here.
But all right, we'll look at that.
We'll look at we'll look at tank tops, female tank tops.
Uh, and add those to the club gitmo line.
Why not?
Well, here's the third slogan.
We've added we've added a slogan, um, and it is uh I got my free Koran and prayer rug at Gitmo.
It goes along with your tropical retreat from the stress of jihad and my Mullow went to Club Gitmo, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.
They're all jumpsuit, prison jumpsuit orange.
They all say Club Gitmo on the front and uh a slogan on the back.
You can get one or all uh if you uh if you choose.
And we've also added on our website the daily five-day forecasts for Baghdad and Guantanamo Bay.
114 today in Baghdad, 87 in um in Guantanamo Bay at Gitmo.
So we're continually adding to the uh the Club Gitmo brochure uh and the Club Gitmo gift shop at WW.rushlimbaugh.com.
And by the way, you do not have to be a member uh to get to the Club Gitmo Brochure and the Club Gitmo gift shop, which is uh uh you know a subdivision of the EIB store.
You don't have to be a subscriber to get to those areas.
Uh amid uh amid new questions about President Bush's drive to topple Saddam Hussein, several House Democrats urged lawmakers on Thursday to conduct an official inquiry to determine whether the president intentionally misled Congress at a public forum where the word impeachment loomed large.
Did I not tell you folks that this was going to happen?
I predicted this during the 2004 campaign before the election.
I told you if Bush is re-elected, they're not gonna stop.
They're gonna try to find some way to impeach him.
I thought then that it might be Abu Graib, but turns out not so this is about the Downing Street memo.
At a public forum where the word impeachment loomed large, exhibit A was the so-called Downing Street memo, a pre-war document leaked from inside the British government to the Sunday Times of London a month and a half ago.
Representative John Conyers of Michigan, the ranking Democrat in the House Judiciary Committee organized the event.
And it is it's another one of these Democrat events.
They're not official.
No Republicans go to them.
They're not the Democrats are not in the majority, so they cannot call it official hearing.
They just get together and they bring in a bunch of their kook fringe website people as expert witnesses.
And then a bunch of Democrats in Congress get up there and testify from their committee chairs.
And this uh this led to uh practically a march up to the White House last night for the president to leave office or to explain the Downing Street memo or what have you.
Recounting a memo or a meeting, the Prime Minister Tony Blair's national security team, the memo says the Bush administration believed that war was inevitable and was determined to use intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to justify the uh the ouster of Saddam.
That's not anywhere near that conclusive, this memo.
In fact, it's not conclusive at all.
It's not conclusive of anything.
If if anything, the Downing Street memo is the opposite of what these Democrats want you to believe that it was.
The president may have deliberately deceived the U.S. to get us into a war, said Gerald Nedler.
Was the president of the U.S. a fool or a knave?
This of course ignores the fact that all intelligence agencies around the world believed the same thing, as did the U.N. Security Council.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Now, the Democratic congressmen were relegated to a tiny room in the bottom of the Capitol.
The Republicans are run the House schedule eleven major votes to coincide with their afternoon event.
Uh Cindy Sheehan, whose soldier son was killed in Baghdad a year ago, told the Democrats we've not been told the truth.
If this administration doesn't have anything to hide, they should be down here testifying.
The White House refuses to respond to a May 5 letter from 122 congressional Democrats about whether there was a coordinated effort to fix the intelligence and facts around the policy as the Downing Street memo.
It doesn't say, it alleges.
Story says that it says.
And they even had former ambassador Joseph Wilson there, a political hack.
He said we are having this discussion today because we failed to have it three years ago when we went to war.
So at any rate, that's that's what the uh uh Democrats' big meeting was about.
Yeah, they continue to, I I tell you, in all of this, continue to do everything I'm asking them to do.
They are showing themselves to be who they are.
See, I'm not angry about this at all.
I'm not angry about Durbin.
I'm angry about it in one sense.
I mean, it's an insult.
But from the political standpoint, Durbin's the best thing that's ever happened.
He's telling everybody who the Democrats are.
And I want him to continue, and I want you to call his office if you're if you're inspired to do that on your own.
Call him up and thank him.
Thank him for helping the American people to understand just what the Democratic Party of 2005 is, what they're all about.
And Conyers and Maxine Waters and this bunch of renegade leftists.
Anti-war pacifists want to also dig in and make their contribution to showing the American people just who the Democratic Party is.
I welcome them getting in on the act as well.
Quick timeout.
We'll be back.
Your phone calls will be up next, along with other items in the stack of stuff here on Open Line Friday.
I'm also getting a lot of grief in the email about my saying earlier in the program, but I send t-shirts out to be uh dry cleaned.
Oh man, people think I'm really out of touch, doing it.
What do you mean your t-shirts don't swink shrink?
You have no idea.
You obviously don't do laundry if you think t-shirts.
I send them out to the dry cleaner.
I send everything but underwear to the dry cleaner because I don't want things to shrink.
So what?
That make me weird.
Nothing comes back for the dry cleaner shrunk on me, I guarantee you.
And it comes back looking brand new even a year later.
Uh this what makes me number 28 on a Forbes list of the uh top 100 most powerful celebrities, I guess.
I am number 28, by the way, folks, list out.
Uh yesterday, I moved up from uh number 31 last year, number 28 on the Forbes magazine top 100 most uh most powerful celebs list.
All right, here's uh Darren in Fairfax, uh Virginia.
Hi, Darren, welcome to the program.
Rush, how are you?
Good.
Thanks for taking my call.
It's an honor to talk to you.
First, I wanted to say how great I think the podcasting is.
I haven't taken it up yet, but I hope to very soon.
But the reason I'm calling today is I wanted to, not that I'm saying that the liberals are strategic in any way, but I wanted to take get your take on whether you think that this whole git mode discussion is a distraction from really talking about one of the important issues of the year, which is Social Security.
Um, you know, let me I'm gonna answer this question as I'm gonna glad you called.
I'm gonna answer this question honestly.
I got in today and I started, you know, fired up the computer and started doing show prep.
And I I went to the 24-7 comments line, the email from members.
And I one of the first emails I saw was a guy chastising me for falling for this trick of uh talking about Gitmo because it's just designed to get us off uh track and divert us from advancing Bush's agenda.
And I understand why people think that.
They you know uh uh this is a a common tactic the Democrats have used in the past, and I applaud people thinking, uh, and I think thinking along these lines perhaps inspired by years and years of this program's uh teachings.
In this case, I don't think that's what's going on.
It also, as you said, it requires the Democrats being super strategic, and it requires us thinking they can outsmart us every time.
And I don't sit here thinking the Democrats outsmart us anymore.
I don't sit here in a defensive posture.
All I know is that Durbin said this and he believes it.
And I know that the Democrats believe it.
And I know that if there's a strategy going on here, it's to drum up anti-Bush support on this war.
It is to embarrass Bush on the war on terror and the war in Iraq because they hate it.
They despise it, they don't want any part of it.
They hope we lose, they hope this embarrasses Bush, and if they can pull this off, they think it'll damage the rest of his agenda.
On Social Security, Bush has been out there, he's gone to how many different places now?
35 different cities made speeches.
Uh nobody's stopping Bush from trying to advance his agenda, and Bush himself is not responding to any of this.
And it also means that for Bush's agenda to get moved forward, we on talk radio have to be the ones to push it.
And I resent that.
The White House responsible for their own agenda.
If they want to advance Social Security, let them get out there and try.
If they want to advance uh tax reform, let them get out there and try.
They want to do reforms on the tax code or whatever it is, let them get out there and try.
It's not my job to advance the White House agenda every day.
I'm a news commentator, America's anchor man, play-by-play man of the news.
I can't ignore this Durban business.
I'm not going to sit here and think it's a trick to take me off the game, because it's not.
I got three hours here.
I can talk about Durban and a thousand other things if I want.
So I I reject that totally.
And I think it comes from a defensive posture thinking that we're always getting skunked by the Democrats.
The thing here is, folks, they are skunking themselves.
They are not building their base.
The Democrats are the ones losing elections, not the Republicans.
The Democrats are the ones that lost majorities and can't get them back.
The Democrats are the ones that are panicked.
The Democrats are the ones that are in quicksand.
In a time of war, after 9-11, what they're doing is suicidal politically for themselves.
And it's certainly because it is not helpful.
You've got military men and women all over this world deployed.
You've got parents, brothers and sisters of military men.
You think this is sitting well with them?
You think it sits well with the greatest generation to hear the number two men, the Democrats in the Senate compare what's going on in a prison when and then describing what's going on, then comparing that to gulags in uh in the Soviet Union or Pol Pot or uh or Nazism.
I I if this is a trick, they're outsmarting themselves and they are uh, you know, they're they're a step and a half ahead of everybody else or a step and a half behind, too smart by half here, because this that that is uh not what's going on.
And they're not stopping Bush from saying whatever he wants to say.
Bush can go out and and advance his agenda on any item.
He can go on television, he can go make a speech, he can go make a trip, regardless what Dick Durbin's doing, regardless of what they're doing in the Senate.
Now, if you say, but Bush's agenda gets advanced in Congress, and uh I folks, can I ask you who's been stopping this agenda all along?
Um the the Bush agenda would would actually have been further along were it not for a bunch of Republicans in the Senate that are holding things up.
We have 55 of them there.
There's only 45 Democrats by themselves, they can't stop Diddley Squat.
The only way the president can be stopped in the Senate is if he'd got some problems on the Republican side.
And whatever Durban's doing doesn't have any effect on that.
Uh now they're trying to hold up John Bolton, uh, and they can't get that done without uh without some help from the Republicans, and they're getting it.
So, you know, I I think the focus here needs to be on these moderate Republicans and these liberal Democrats who are so out of touch with what's really important on the minds of most of the American people today, and that's what we're focusing on here.
Because that's the real story.
Who are the Democrats?
Who really is running this party?
And why are they doing what they're doing and how do how come they think it'll work?
Why are they so out of touch?
Here's uh Bob in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
You're next, sir.
Welcome to the program.
Hi, Rush.
How are you?
I'm just fine.
Thank you.
Uh I've been thinking about a question I've wanted to ask you for quite a while.
It's really hard to get through and get through to your show.
Uh in light of all the the bombings and beheadings and insurgency going on in Iraq since Saddam was captured.
I was wondering what what you would what you feel would have happened if he'd have been assassinated or killed in that hole that day instead of captured.
Uh well.
That's a different question, I thought you were going to ask.
I thought you were gonna say, would it have been better off if we'd have killed Saddam?
If you'd have stopped there, the answer is yes.
If the early bombing raids to have killed him would have worked, hell yes, been much better off.
But when you capture the guy in a hole and he surrenders.
Right.
Uh no, I that's not we're not gonna do that.
Uh you'd have to concoct a story.
There'd be too many witnesses to the truth.
Some of them would leak and you'd have so many problems after that.
Uh no, uh, this is what we do, Sloboda Amalosevic.
This is what we did with all the Nazi generals we caught.
We brought him trial, Nuremberg or whatever.
That's what we do.
Yeah.
Um and yeah, it would have been better if Saddam uh would have perished in those early bombing raids, but you know, you deal with what happens.
Right.
Well, yeah, I realize that.
I was wondering about, you know, the day we captured him if he's not a good thing.
No, I I frankly blowing up his hands and somebody to drop their grenade in that hole, you know, or you asked him, you know, thought he was going for a gun and would have killed him.
No, no, because somebody would have known that's not true.
You had too many guys around there.
You uh uh too many people would have known the whole thing was a murder, and then somebody would have the guy's surrendering.
Uh somebody would have leaked it.
That would have been even worse.
Um uh plus the upside here, you know, the Iraqis get their turn now.
The Iraqis get to try this guy.
And that's going to advance this whole notion of uh a free people with a judicial system and uh, you know, hopefully a democracy or what have you.
So no, it's it's better off that it happened the way it is.
Back after this.
Don't go away.
I don't know if we can do this.
We're gonna try.
I'm gonna try.
I just uh I got another suggestion here for one more slogan on the back of our Club Gitmo t-shirts.
You know, they're the burnt orange, uh the prison jumpsuit orange color on the front in a Navy or Royal Blues is Club Gitmo.
Want to add this slogan to the three that we already have.
What happens in Gitmos stays in Gitmo.
What happens in Gitmo stays in now it's not there yet, so don't call an ass for that one, but we're working, we're gonna I'm gonna uh I just uh just send it off to the uh the powers to be here to see if we can get this added.
It's a manufacturing uh uh challenge here to to add these things incrementally like this.
But we'll see.
Uh I hope I get an answer before the uh program's over.
But regardless, watch the website because we I'm might get clearance when the program's over this afternoon, but you'll always be able to tell what the slogans are, uh, which they're available at the uh the Club Gitmo gift shop, EIB store uh at rushlimbaugh.com.
Here is Guy in Bloomington, Illinois.
Welcome to the program.
Yes, sir.
How are you doing?
Um, good.
Uh huh.
I uh I want to say that the left the left is uh used uh uh these these bad um comparisons uh for all for all time.
Um John Kerry said the American soldier was the same as Genghis Tron.
Um Ted Kennedy said that uh Abu Grab was uh just under new management but operating the same.
And then now, of course, uh our senator from Illinois here uh is is uh making us the equivalent to Stalling.
That is an X wait a second.
What guy don't lose your train of thought, but I want to make I want to emphasize that.
Durbin's not alone here.
Kerry did say, did did say that U.S. soldiers were the equivalent of Genghis Khan in his 1971 testimony.
Ted Kennedy on the one-year anniversary of the Abu Ghraib.
Imagine that, the one year anniversary of Abu Ghrab.
He actually said that Abu Ghrab was now open.
Uh the the prisons of Saddam Hussein were now open under new management, but equated what was happening there today with what was going on when Saddam was running the place.
So you're right, Durban is not alone.
Exactly.
Did you have anything else to uh add?
Oh, we won't he was you know what he was gonna say?
Um no, I got him confused with this next guy.
Okay, that was the sum total of his comments.
That's why I hung up.
I'm sorry, this is Irma in uh in East Granby, Connecticut.
Hi, Irma, welcome to the program.
I'm not a guy, but anyway, um I think my father would have been very happy to be at Gidmo.
Um my father, uh late father, he went to concentration camps in Germany uh during the uh the Nazi time.
And uh he wasn't but it wasn't Buchanan, and he went through almost the same presence after the uh that time under the East German government.
And uh uh he I could tell you stories uh that would probably last two hours.
So I don't want to say more.
I just wanted to be brief.
But I am absolutely upset and sick about uh uh Mr. Turban's uh and I am very sad that we have senators in the United States Senate like that.
I love this country.
We brought our children up here, and we are just um devastated by this kind of talk.
I understand Totally.
And this call, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what millions of Americans are thinking, how millions of Americans are reacting, and it's why there's no Democrat strategy here to take Bush off of his agenda game because the damage they are doing to themselves is uh is more severe than they have any way of knowing.
All you have to do is listen to what Irma said.
Her late father was in Vukenvold.
And you've got a U.S. Senator, number two Democrat, comparing what American soldiers are doing in Guantanamo Bay to the kinds of abuses and atrocities her father and others faced in these in these prison camps.
And they were, believe me, they were tortured, they were tortured before they were exterminated.
And the the the that's why I said earlier in the program, the utter lack of human sensitivity that Dick Durbin exhibits in this comment.
I don't want any of you thinking that this is a brilliant democratic ploy and that we're on the defensive here.
They have stepped in it.
You've you've put 15 bags of excrement out in front of Dick Durbin.
He stepped in every one of them here.
This is not some brilliantly conceived and flawlessly executed Democrat plan to screw up Bush's agenda.
Don't fall for it.
If there's somebody out there telling you that, there's sophists.
And and I tell them they don't know what they're talking about.
Westmont, Illinois.
Bob, welcome to the program.
Nice to have you with us.
Hi, Rush.
Dittoes.
Uh I I that's a tough call to follow, but I'm gonna try.
Uh I have to humbly disagree with you on one point.
Uh namely, I don't believe Durman believes any of this stuff.
Uh, this man is a world-class weather van.
Well, then that makes it even worse.
Uh well, he's he has he has no scruples.
He's our own little flickster.
We have uh a great uh host on WLS in Chicago who refers to him as Eddie Haskell from uh the old Leave It to Beaver series.
Because he he he tells us one thing, he tells somebody else something else.
Uh I he's reading the poll numbers.
They smell blood in the water, they think now they think they're gonna clean up uh and and uh uh drive the Republicans out.
Well, they are mis if if they're doing this because of poll numbers, and let me let me address something first.
I mentioned the possibility yesterday that because somebody else called.
So Durban doesn't really believe this.
Uh he he just this is just the latest uh Democrat ploy.
Okay, if he doesn't believe it, then it's even worse.
It's one thing for somebody to say this and mean it, but to make the to lie about this and say you don't really, you just saying that makes if if and it's marginally different, I mean it's not a big difference here, but it is worse.
Now the other, if the Democrats are doing this because of polling data, they are making the biggest mistake they've ever.
If they think Bush is Bush is not gonna be on the ballot ever again, if they're gonna take approval numbers in the summer, and if they're gonna look at presidential approval numbers and see 42 percent, they'd better take a look at congressional approval numbers and see 39%.
They better see Congress looking pretty bad too.
But if they're gonna look at these presidential approval poll numbers, you've got a president who doesn't govern by the polls.
It doesn't matter.
If Bill Clinton's approval number is 42%, it matters because Clinton's governing by polls.
But Bush isn't.
Bush doesn't care, folks.
He doesn't care.
He's doing whatever he thinks is best and whatever he thinks is right.
He doesn't care what the polls are.
You don't see him taking any action to change what these polls are.
He's doing immigration.
How many people do you think are mad at him about that?
But is he responding to No, he's doing what he thinks is right, may disagree with him, may think he's making a political mistake, but he's sticking with it.
I think some of the numbers in Bush's uh polling numbers that are that are low, I frankly think that some of those respondents are Democrats or Republicans, upset that he's not doing enough to advance the agenda.
I don't think it's all Democrats and Americans who hate Bush and don't like him.
I think there's some Republicans disappointed, but he doesn't care is the point.
If the Democrats who cannot govern by what's in their heart, who cannot govern by what's in their core, can only govern by focus group and poll, if that's why they're doing this, then they're even sillier and more idiotic than I thought.
This is a death trap to be doing this because of polls, to take Bush's poll numbers plummeting and assuming that this means everybody hates Bush and everybody hates the war in Iraq.
So what do you do?
You go out, you attack soldiers, and you attack your own country as being no different than Soviet gulags, pole pot in Cambodia, and Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
That's how you take advantage of it.
The Democrats don't have if those if if if these poll numbers were accurate, you know what the antidote to them is?
Optimism.
Positive.
Here's what's wrong.
This is what we need to do to fix it.
But in saying what's wrong, you don't constantly beat up your own country.
You don't rip your own country to shreds.
You don't make women like Irma embarrassed and to near tears because her father was in a prison camp.
They cannot.
They just cannot help but criticize this country.
And why in the world they think that's going to appeal to people outside their own small kook fringe cook base remains a huge mystery to me.
Quick break.
We'll be back after this.
Stay with it.
Hey, welcome back, Rush Limbaugh.
It's open line Friday.
Dennis Kozlowski has just been found guilty of uh grand larceny is the um the Tyco CEO that's been under trial up in New York, found guilty of grand larceny.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, I just received back the official word.
We are going to be able to add the fourth slogan to uh to the club Gitmo t-shirts and a club gitmo gift shop.
The fourth slogan is what what uh what happens in Gitmo stays in Gitmo.
So look at what we've done here.
We have four slogans up from our original two.
We've uh added two uh XL sizes, uh triple X, quadruple X. Uh and uh now the the the website I don't think yet indicates that that fourth slogan is available.
You'd have to keep checking it.
But I just got the approval, just got the note back.
We're on it.
So it's in the works, and the uh that fourth slogan will be available.
What happens in Gitmo stays in Gitmo.
That'll be on the back and on the front, of course it just says Club Gitmo.
Johnny in Salt Lake City.
I'm glad you called.
Welcome to the program.
Thanks, Rush.
It's an honor to be with you.
Thanks.
Hey, um earlier today you talked about that that Forbes celebrity list.
You said that you had moved up from, I think it was 31 to 28.
Yeah, it was number 28 on the Forbes top 100 most powerful celebrities list, yes.
There we go.
See, I've read that thing before, and it seemed to me that those celebrities, uh I think it was trying to insinuate that they had power within maybe the industry.
Those are people who could walk into a studio exec's office and and push a movie.
And I think they're undercutting, you know, your political power.
I mean, you're the one who can get things done.
Most of those people, you know, when it comes to political power, they can maybe get some, you know, some applause here and there.
But uh, but you're the man.
You know, you're you're definitely number one on that list when it comes to being able to get something done out there.
Well, I of course agree, uh, but I I don't make the list.
And I I've, you know, the list used to be the 100 uh highest earners or or highest paid or whatever.
And I never used to mention a list.
Um first time I made it was number 40.
I never used to mention a list when it talked about you know earnings, but now that it's uh call the most powerful, I I'm you know, I have no compunction about uh talking about it.
I did move up from 31 to 28.
I think, and I'm really not certain, but I think they measure a whole lot of things uh to come up with this power business.
Website hits and like you say, uh can can you know, can some some actor walk into a studio heads and get a movie made based just on the fact he wants to do it?
Things like that.
Uh I don't think they calculate political power in this.
Uh because most celebrities uh I don't think really are tabulated in that context, at least their power isn't.
Do I want to make a movie?
Uh I've never thought about it.
Uh you know, I my problem is I am totally happy doing what I'm doing.
You know, I am I'm extensively happy and satisfied doing what I'm doing.
Uh I've written a couple of books, and then people say, why don't you write another?
And I'm I do want to write, but I haven't got the point, folks, where I want to do it, and I know if I sat down to write a book now, it wouldn't be any good because I don't want to do it.
One thing I've learned in my life, don't do it till you want to.
Unless you have no choice, like when you're in school.
Uh, but when you have a choice, don't do it till you want to.
Desire is 80% of achievement.
It has been for me.
Uh I've done a television show and people who say, why don't you go back to TV?
I you don't know how proud I am that this show is more powerful than most television shows.
That this show has more audience than most television shows, particularly in the political arena.
But beyond that, I've done this radio show for so you know, folks, I've not had to do, I've never had one meeting.
I've been doing radio since I was 16.
I've never had one meeting to do.
Well, let me talk about this show, which started in 84.
I have Sacramento.
I've never done had one meeting.
I've had many coaching sessions with program directors, though.
I've been fired for using the word therefore too many times.
And I've had to listen to tapes of my show after the program for some program director who never succeeded at anything telling me how to do what I was doing better.
We've all had to do that.
But since this show started, I've never had one meeting.
That TV show that I did, the syndicated show, which has four times the audience of any cable TV show today.
On commercial over the air broadcast syndication.
We had to have an hour and a half's worth of meetings every day to do 22 minutes of that TV show.
And that's just not the way I work.
I've established a different pattern.
I'm not criticizing people to do it.
It's just it it was um and it we I eventually adapted to it, and it got to be a fun show to do.
But there was no spontaneity.
Everything had to be laid out in advance.
All the cameramen and the floor directors had to know where they were gonna be at exactly the right time, and everything had to be done in the order we had set it down, and and it just didn't allow for any flexibility whatsoever.
And uh that they're just those are the differences.
Uh, if you're gonna use video clips, if you're gonna use uh other elements uh on a television, it has to be done that way.
You just can't say to the engineer, grab that bite.
It's not that easy in television.
Well, it wasn't then, I don't know if it is now.
Uh, but I I do know it can't be done on the fly like it can in radio.
Uh so and uh do TV if I wanted to, but I just don't have the burning passion to do it, so that tells me don't do it.
And until I get the burning passion to do it, I'm I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna mess with it.
Now, when I say that I'm content and satisfied, I don't mean uh I have no more ambition, because the ambition here is to make this even bigger and keep it growing faster than it ever has.
But in terms of you know, finding what I love to do and doing it, this is it.
Uh the need to do other things isn't there.
I don't have an ego need to be on TV.
I don't have an ego need uh to do anything else.
This is I just wish everybody could find what they love doing and do it because it it it eliminates so many other hassles in uh in life.
I gotta run a quick time out.
We'll be back and continue uh just a moment right after this.
All right, folks, it's up.
It's up.
The new t-shirt, what happens in Gitmo stays in Gitmo, is now officially available at Rushlinbaugh.com at the Gitmo gift shop and the EIB store.
It's all part of our uh our Club Gitmo uh brochure.
So uh within 25 or 20 minutes of it being suggested, it's up.
No, these are not dry clean only t-shirts, HR.
Now, see, I'm still catching grief.
Would somebody tell me you've seen these t-shirts I wear, the black one, the yellow one, the red one.
What is so strange about getting these things?
What what what is so odd about wanting to always look brand new?
What what I know I I know normal people wash their t-shirts and it's but the forget this, forget forget this, forget normal normal business.
I I yeah, okay, you know, I could just wash them once and twice and go out and buy new ones, but I try to be more economical than that.
You know, I don't have to buy all these new t-shirts everybody else does because they wear them out in a washing machine and a harsh dryer and so forth.
And don't give me this normal business.
I'm a normal person.
More people ought to do things the way I do them.
Why I mean, and and and t-shirts would look better and everything else.
They wouldn't shrink up.
Who wants a t-shirt to shrink?
I don't.
Folks, have a have a great weekend, and uh we'll be back on Monday.
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